Here’s an interesting graph from the World Economic Forum from their article Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens?
Discontent spreads
Between October and November 2016, the percentage of people who believe things are on the right track in their country dropped by 2 percentage points to 37% globally.
China is bucking the trend with 90% of people expressing confidence in their country’s direction, followed by Saudi Arabia (80%). More than three quarters of Indians and just under six in ten people in Russia and Argentina also believe their country is on the right track.
Brazil is the notable exception among the BRICs nations with only 17% believing the country is heading in the right direction. In Asia, South Korea is an outlier too. Just 13% of its citizens have faith in the country’s trajectory.
Among the Western nations, Canadians are the only people with a predominantly positive outlook (54%).
The US is in the midfield, despite a small month-on-month drop in confidence from 37% to 35%. However, the survey was conducted before the presidential election, and the mood may have changed.
France and Mexico bring up the rear as their citizens have the least confidence in their country’s direction: 88% and 96% of the populace respectively believe that their country is on the wrong track.
A gender split suggests that, globally, men are more optimistic about their nations’ direction than women, with the biggest gender confidence gaps in the US, Israel and Russia.
Ipos MORI Poll
The poll was conducted by Ipos MORI with a strong emphasis on comparing the UK with the rest of the world.
Clicking on the above link downloads a set of charts in a single PDF file. Here are a two more charts.
Gender Gap
Most Worrying Issue
The most worrying issue in the US is terrorism. Isn’t that a hoot? How many in the US have died from terrorism?
How much terrorism has the US sponsored in other nations, including its own drone policy?
The US warmongers sure have stirred up a lot of irrational fear of terrorism in the US.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Americans are proving to be an extremely gullible lot. The like of Obomber, McCain, Graham, Clinton spend their days destroying freedom while convincing folks to look the other way and worry about some terrorists who will never threaten them. Indoctrination at its finest.
Hilary and her brigade of corruption thinks the US is filled with deplorables, and people like Soros are mad as hell that she tipped their hand before they had control. Americans voted to get Soros and his puppets out of the Oval office. We are not as stupid or as corruptible as Soros and his ilk think.
Its a shame US voters had to force the board to make Rodney Dangerfield a member of Bushwood Country Club in order to break the cycle of corruption in Washington DC… but it had to be done.
The global economy, wrecked and corrupted by these “globalists” as they like to call themselves, is the problem. Most of the people joining terrorist groups do so out of desperation and loss of hope — others join because Soros’ NGOs offer them cash.
Its the economy. Its taxes (especially Obamacare, but property and income taxes too) taking too big a chunk out of our stagnant paychecks.
Mish is just click baiting us I think. Can’t imagine anyone giving a cr-p about what Soros’ WEF opinion poll thinks.
I challenge anyone who claims to fully understand precisely what is underway here.
My function in society brings me into contact with numerous staffers on both the Senate and House sides and I have been doing what I do since 1971 in one form or other. I have never witnessed anything approaching the frenzy of rumors that I have been hearing from staffers (not even in the weeks preceeding the departure of Richard Nixon) since BHO first ordered the multiagency intelligence report regarding Russia, DNC, Clinton, Trump et al some twelve days prior to the meeting of the Electoral College. What I do know with absolute certainty is that during those twelve days there was created an amazingly expensive and coordinated effort of the Administration and the dissolving Clinton campaign to reverse the result of the election by cajoling, coercing and suborning Electors. The project failed spectacularly and actually widened the anticipated vote gap Trump/Clinton. Then everything went quiet for several days until the “intelligence communities” of the UK, one Baltic state and the USA agreed (with very little internal dissent in the US) to attempt to induce DJT to forfeit in favor of Pence by raising the level of various threats (legal, reputational and physical) to the President- Elect to whatever measure necessary. Essentially the entire transition team is under multiple forms of both legal and illegal surveillance with both the awareness and assent of the highest level (read as BHO) of the Administration as were multiple Trump campaign staffers during the final three weeks prior to the election.
Several Republican Members (both Senate and House) are aware and in agreement regarding these actions with a schism between those who want DJT to forfeit in favor of Pence and those who desire both DJT and Pence to forfeit in favor of Paul Ryan, and there are staffer betting pools with respect to whether on Monday, January 23, 2016 we will be governed by President Trump, President Pence or President Ryan.
I have no idea whatsoever as to which of the three is in the lead and no idea whatsoever as to what other actions the actors in this remarkable drama intend to take.
But hang on to your hats and seats and watch carefully and analytically because these are going to be the most interesting few days in the history of the Republic.
No they won’t. You can’t humiliate a man with no humility. He will be President and everyone will deal with it.
If anyone other than Trump is sworn in there will be civil war. I hope with all my heart that your doubts are unfounded.
That is the one thing that makes me think that he will not be ousted by US agency, but really we do not know what goes on and why.
I’ll add that all the talk of the attempts at discrediting DJT that seem amateurish etc. to me seem purposefully orchestrated that way. That is to say I have 0 judgement of what, if anything, is being woven. If there is a deep state hand behind the flow of events not one of you has any idea whatsoever of how this has been, and will be, played.
I hope DJT is free of truly morally compromising material, at best a doubt has been firmly embedded – that there are people looking to destroy him from behind the scenes who may actually be in a position to do so. If they are able to it will be before inaugration I imagine, and all those who placed faith in DJT will be purposefully humiliated.
We just don’t know, and our opinion would be worth absolutely nothing in that process until events became real.
All we can do is remain detached from the hype, and be very observant how events unfold. Much as I would like to completely deny attention to the topic, I don’t think anyone here would disagree that the transfer of power is not straightforward this time.
Either they really don’t have much of anything so they go with whatever they can find, or it’s all a master plan to turn Trump into the underdog. America loves the underdog story, and the more the established players dig into him the more he looks like Rocky Balboa.
I’m afraid of terrorism.
Federal government terrorism, state government terrorism, and local government terrorism.
+infinity
The World Economic Forum? Seriously?
This is the crap-fest meeting that Maria Bartoroma (CNBC, now Fox) likes to call the “gathering of the elites”… and what other people call the gathering of George Soros and his “globalist” government types.
Of course WEF wants to keep people scared about terrorism, constantly demanding more and more police state nonsense.
Lets be honest enough to admit to ourselves that it was George Soros who paid for thugs to go in and violently disrupt Trump political rallies. George Soros is a financial sponsor of terrorism, and should be in Guantanamo prison with the others.
Many European countries, including Soros’ birthplace Hungary, have banned Soros and his quasi-terrorist NGOs.
If the USA had a competent person in the Oval office now instead of Obozo, Soros would have been arrested, stripped of all assets, and sent to finish his days in Guantanamo.
As for the opinions of his little gathering of the corrupt… who the f#ck cares. The economy is the biggest problem in the US, the UK, the EU (what is left of it), in Russia, in China, in India, in Brazil… everywhere.
If the global economy wasn’t being run by criminals, there would be far fewer discontented people reading terrorist manifestos — and Soros would have only his crazy cult members.
Soros and the WEF are the problem. Send Soros to prison and at least 50% of the “terrorist” problems go away. Improve the global economy, and most of the rest go away too.
Did you read the article?
WEF had no real part . It was all an IPOS survey.
I could have left out WEF and easily have made the same comments myself.
What did the WEF say that you dispute?
Mish
IPOS is a polling / public opinion company … conducting surveys on behalf of their clients (sometimes simple polls, sometimes detailed “interviews” of the public)
The PDF doesn’t say who commissioned this particular poll — but as you yourself pointed out, the poll was quoted by WEF in their propaganda
Should cross poll results you use with other sources to check if they are reliable maybe e.g. :
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx
http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm
Though none have exact same question, the notion is not far off.
“The most worrying issue in the US is terrorism. Isn’t that a hoot? How many in the US have died from terrorism?”
You have a silly argument.
How many worry about being mugged walking through a bad part of a city at night? Most do. How many do get mugged? Not many. But that doesn’t mean the fear isn’t logical.
And terrorism isn’t about killing as many people as it can. It is about gaining a political victory through terror.
Like instituting Sharia Law.
8 million people in NYC watched the Towers fall and saw the smoke for weeks. THAT is end point of terror.
I was in Afghanistan. Women, by law, were allowed to not wear a burka. None took it off. Why? Because a devout islamic follower would through acid into a fee girls faces to intimidate the rest.
That is terror.
It is not about body counts.
Fear is a function of emotion, not logic. What Mish alludes to is actual risk. Risk is logical (rational) and not emotional. Terrorism is scary, but the likelihood of encountering it is infinitesimally small in the US. Therefore it is an irrational fear for an American.
However, the military industrial complex in collusion with a number of “think tanks”, politicians, and the MSM have made a significant portion of Americans believe it is a rational fear. They do this for financial gain and control. Control keeps the financial gain continuing.
Bingo
If the sample size of respondents in the USA is significant (it doesn’t say) — then about a third of the sampled persons think terrorism is the top issue…
… which is to say 67% of US respondents think the top issue is something other than terrorism.
And if the IPOS survey is to be believed, the dispersion of responses is the widest in the USA (the alleged “top issue” was cited by the smallest percentage).
In other words, there is much lower agreement in the US about what the most important issue is. But fully two thirds think it is something other than terrorism (assuming this survey is accurate)
All good points.
Fred, all it does it make it look like terrorism is what the US most agrees on, which might be right but only with a small %. Given it is so identifiable as a an umbrella term, and so promoted, it is not too surprising.
One thing we may be overlooking is the fact that a significant percentage of American people believe that we deplorable right wing extremists ARE terrorists. The progressives have been pushing this notion for years that WE are the number one threat to America, and if you listen to the constant diatribes coming from the left who are pushing chaos and demanding a martial law coup, who could doubt that “terrorism” is not a primary concern for ALL of us. As a conservative I am currently seeing as MY number one threat domestic “terrorists”, as they organize and insist that they will take down Trump by ANY means necessary, including the violent overthrow and usurpation of the constitution. If we had ISIS making such claims it would be condition RED and they would be rounded up and detained….but not with progressives in charge, as it IS their agenda. There can be no greater coup for them than to create a national crisis in which they can subvert our constitution….all to protect us and save the country that Obama clearly told us STILL has not achieved its true goal…..whatever the hell that might be.
Terror indeed.
The future of our nation is in doubt and there are those who will not hesitate to oppress any and all of us to achieve their goals. They see NO hypocrisy in screaming of fascism while demand tyranny to defeat it.
The problem comes from not having an agreed upon definition of terrorism. I think the point about not wearing the burka in Afghanistan because of fear of having acid thrown in your face is a good example. Rational or irrational? What are the actuarial odds? Probably less than 1 in 100, but if you are a woman in Afghanistan the irrational emotional inference of high probability might have a real survival logic.
Definition of terrorism being used by poll respondents is the key. Maybe an inner city resident fearing terrorism means the very local drug dealers, drive-by shootings and gangs. Not all terrorism is Islamic radicals. I was just at the Sacramento Bee newspaper website watching their Facebook newscast from UC Davis, where a Breitbart editor was kept from speaking in an auditorium by a hostile crowd chanting (anti-fascism, anti-capitalism, anti-KKK, etc.) and slowly turning violent. Reminded me of being on the UCLA campus right after the election, listening to young crowd led from 1960s protest songs to chants of Fck Trump, Fck Capitalism, Fck Corporations, etc. The anger and hostility in the air was real. If you asked me then, I would have responded that I feared terrorism from the Neo-Bolshevik left. Reading reports of Million Woman March on Inauguration disruption plans, and wondering if just another manifestation of the same Neo-Bolshevik Movement. If logical is anti-electoral college, anti-Russia, anti-capitalism, pro-global climate change taxes and Neo-Bolshevik, the better choice might be the deplorable, irredeemable, supermarket tabloid headline scanners voting Trump under the influence of FBI Director Comey and Putin, who ran a better campaign with a staff of six nerds in the Kremlin basement than Hillary with her billion dollars and massive ground game. Putin and Comey would deserve to be Prez and VP if it were true.
Yawn….sample size?
Sample size is about 11 people… Soros and 10 people who work for his NGOs sponsoring terrorism
WEF “speaks” for a few hundred “globalists” — aka Soros plan to have one giant corrupt government rule the world without an election.
Sure the strong dollar hurts but lets not get in a dither about the effect of tourism on the US.
I live in Florida and tourism is scary as hell. You ever watch your average New Yorker drive?
They bus in tourerists by the thousands. They are looking to copy/steal our national landmarks. Oh, the horror.
Give me a break. The latinos are much worse than us New Yorkers. A South American behind the wheel of a car is frightening. They don’t believe in red lights or stop signs in their countries. No such thing as moving violations in most of those places either.
Sometimes indifference and ignorance are indistinguishable.
Mish:
The IPOS survey (if it is accurate, and if it has significant sample size) says that roughly 67% of US citizens (two thirds) think the biggest problem is something OTHER than terrorism.
The survey also suggests there is a lot more disagreement in the US than in the other surveyed countries. And it does not say who commissioned the study (which could help us to evaluate whether the survey questions were “loaded” or geared to favor certain responses).
For all the alleged fear of terrorism in the US (I seriously doubt the accuracy of this WEF garbage) — the much bigger “poll” of how many Americans show up at big public events (sporting events in stadiums, New Years celebrations in cities, etc) doesn’t seem like terrorism is the big issue.
Wow, only 90% of Chinese and 80% of Saudis think their countries are headed in the right direction? Shocking. I would have expected no less than 100% unanimity in those totalitarian regimes.
We can imagine that nations experiencing cultural diversity are somehow stronger and likely ARE idealistically, but I would suggest that those nations who lack unity of values and agenda are defeated nations, defeated deliberately by those interests that have been injecting the notion of a dissolved and ill-defined identity. America has the strongest military in the world but because we have been so divided by culture and ideology, we are a paper tiger. We are overwhelmed by almost infinite threats and have NO IDEA which are real and which are contrived. We have been suffering under this argument over radical Islam for years and are no closer to a unity of thought. We are seeing this aggravating argument over Russia as either a ominous threat or our best friend…..we do not know for sure.
We are divided and as such I believe already defeated, especially when we fail to even recognize it. At this point ANY military attack on a major power would result in a civil war within our won country, as there is so much division, and not subtle division. ANGER.
I see that you are in the part of the problem column.
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
—Howard Zinn
Corruption succeeds because it is profitable for those participating and punitive to those who do NOT. Many many of us have been participating, even if we don’t want to admit it. How many have profited from “investing” on our absolutely corrupt markets? Most our jobs are completely dependent upon the corruption at play and only when we start to see the end game, the base of the Ponzi beginning to disintegrate, only THEN do our “principles” kick in. We ignore our gut, we live beyond our means on borrowed money, we invest our money into things we know can’t be true, but yet they are. We live in denial while constantly complaining of reality…someone should DO something!!
And they did.
Now, TODAY, society BELIEVES they are entitled….something that has NEVER existed or persisted for any life form on the planet for ANY significant period of time. And our delusion is SO strong that we will FIGHT to preserve it, KILL if necessary.
What column are YOU in?
Nor obedience nor disobedience are the trouble, rather blind unthinking obedience .
Obedience, who you listen to litterally, is very normal. Disobedience is to simply ignore or turn away from.
The problem is the corrupt manipulation of the audience, that could even be of obedience to disobedience.
Anarchy is none of that, being closer to unobstructed free will, and is dependent in its appearance on the nature of the individual.
The problem is indoctrination and forced obedience.
Agendas, planning, objectives, unity, identity are not good or bad of themselves, nor values or culture.
To purposefully dilute or confuse them is as bad as trying to impose them.
“The problem is indoctrination and forced obedience.”
Well that’s the MO of government. The problem is that our evolutionary past has made most people too susceptible to it and “free will” takes a leave of absence.
Yep, it is understandable but strange also. Maybe that retention of the familiar is what keeps people entranced beyond the point of reason.
Stranger is 4% in Mexico. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a poll with a 4% approval rating.
Now Brazil, one really should watch what is going on in the prisons there right now. Very entertaining if one is entertained by bandidos cutting each other to pieces with machetes. Would make for great TV.
How do they poll Mexicans living in tin roofed shacks? Do they COUNT? Probably not.
Tin!!! Tin is expensive. Those are the elite.
Seamless propaganda works!
Who knew?
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
H.L. Mencken
Emphasis on imaginary. And on All.
Kill a bunch of people over there and few people actually care. Kill a bunch of people in nightclubs, malls, outdoor gatherings over here and everyone cares. We are in a transition here. America will eventually get used to terror in America just like Israel is used to it now. The more terror we have the more control we will tolerate from our government.
And, like Israel, the more innocent Muslims we murder, the more terrorists we create. A virtuous cycle for Lockheed and Carlyle.
The greatest irony is Mexicans believe to an extreme their country is heading in the wrong direction; however, the country is not so bad as to be fearful of expressing government disapproval.
I’m surprised that ‘government tyranny’ is not one of the optional topics.
OTOH, perhaps not considering who conducted the poll.
But that would be my greatest fear, particularly since we’ve lost the media as a prime line of defense.
911 was not exactly a hoot. One of these days there will be an even worse attack. But even the small attacks only happen because moslems have been allowed in and for what reason. the American taxpayer is paying for many of these refugees and dying because of them. The price for entry has always been a willingness to accept our laws and culture. Moslem do not do that and should not be allowed in.
My number one concern isn’t terrorism. It’s tinnitus. Ever since I shut off the TV my house is so quiet I really notice the ringing.